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| ----- Original Message ----- From: D*** C****** To: Spam.Catcher@FamilyBible.org Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 8:51 AM Subject: Questions I do not understand why the Jews have not accepted Jesus Christ as the messiah? I do not understand why the Jews have abandoned sacrifices? Could you please provide me with some guidance on these 2 questions? Perhaps some simple literature?!?!? D*** C****** Dear DC,
See also, for example http://www.jewfaq.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?Keywords=sacrifice&x=7&y=13 and http://www.jewfaq.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?Keywords=prayer
As far as the first question (“I do not understand why the Jews have not accepted Jesus Christ as the messiah?”) is concerned, I don't believe that the question is actually phrased correctly. It assumes that Jews as a whole have rejected the Messiah, which I don't feel is an accurate assumption. In fact, I will go so far as to suggest that the percentage of Jews who have accepted the Messiah since His resurrection is probably very close to the percentage of non-Jews (Gentiles) who have accepted the Messiah since His resurrection. I feel that the real problem and source of confusion here is in the way the statistics are collected and measured. First of all, it my personal opinion that it is incorrect to assume that Yeshua was rejected by the Jews as their Messiah at the time of His resurrection. I don’t feel that assumption can be supported by history. In fact, I believe it can be successfully demonstrated that within not many years after the resurrection perhaps as many as 30 to 40 percent of the entire population of Jerusalem, including a large number of the kohanim [priests], believed that Yeshua was their Messiah immediately following His resurrection.
“They, when they
heard it, glorified The Greek word translated “thousands” in Acts 21:20 is “myriads,” which is actually the word for “ten thousand,” not “thousand.” By most estimates I have seen, the population of Jerusalem at this time was about a hundred thousand. One or two myriads would not be referred to as “how many myriads,” but three or four myriads might be, and three or four myriads would represent between 30 and 40 percent of the population of Jerusalem at the time. I can assure you, that is a far higher percentage of Believers than can be found in any city in the United States today! In fact, there have been enough present-day Jewish rabbis who have believed in Yeshua that several books have been written about them. [For more on this subject, please see http://www.familybible.org/FAQ/jewish.htm] It must also be understood that until Emperor Constantine declared his pagan form of “Christianity” to be the official religion of the Roman Empire in the early part of the fourth century (about 311), the Body of Messiah was almost entirely Jewish. [See http://www.familybible.org/Teaching/Messianic/church.htm.] With that single decree, the entire Gentile population of the whole Roman Empire instantly became counted as “Christian”[NOTE] regardless of their true beliefs. Then at the Council of Nicea in the year 325, Constantine issued decrees which essentially forced Jewish believers to totally abandon all of their Jewish heritage and identity. And in 365 the Synod of Laodicea issued additional decrees which defined virtually everything Jewish as “heresy,” expelling from the “church” any person who could be identified as Jewish. Thus, the true Body of Messiah went from being almost entirely Jewish in 311 to being almost an entirely pagan Gentile “church” by 365, a period of only 54 years. [See http://www.familybible.org/Articles/ Jewish-ChristianRelations/Decrees.htm] Ever since that time, until the Messianic Jewish Revival began in the mid-1960s, whenever a Jewish person has come to faith in Messiah he/she was no longer considered a Jew, but was counted as a Gentile Christian by both the “church” and by the Jewish community. To both the “church” and the “synagogue,” he/she had “converted” from Judaism to Christianity. Then there is the entire semantic-twisting issue of “who is a Jew?” engaged in by both Jews and non-Jews. According the science of genetics, a biological Jew is any person who is a physical descendant of Avraham, Yitzhak, and Ya`akov [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob]. According to Israel’s Law of Return (by which is determined an individual’s right to be considered a Jew for purposes of returning to live in Israel as a citizen), a Jew is “any person whose mother was a Jew and who has not converted to another religion” (such as Christianity). Thus, according to Judaism, any person who has ever accepted Yeshua as the Messiah is, by definition, no longer a Jew. So you can see by to this way of thinking it is literally impossible for a Jew to accept Yeshua as Messiah. Anyone who does so is not Jewish. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the fallacy of this line of reasoning which, if applied equally to all ethnic groups and cultural identities, would create an entirely new ethnic group called “Christian.” If a Jew who believes in Yeshua as Messiah is not longer a Jew but Christian, then any Chinese person who believes in Yeshua as Messiah is not longer Chinese but Christian; any Mexican person who believes in Yeshua as Messiah is not longer Mexican but Christian; any Asian person who believes in Yeshua as Messiah is not longer Asian but Christian; any French person who believes in Yeshua as Messiah is not longer French but Christian. Totally absurd!!! I believe a much more accurately-phrased question would be, “Why is it so difficult for a Jewish person to come to faith in Messiah?” But that question is almost as difficult to answer, again because of common definitions and assumptions. A majority of non-Jewish “Christians” who attempt to bring
the Gospel to a Jewish person simply approach the issue entirely wrong.
Instead of approaching the Jewish person with a heart of love and with a
Messiah who is thoroughly Jewish (as is the historical Yeshua of Nazareth),
they approach in a spirit of confrontation with a Messiah who does not at all
resemble the historical Yeshua. One such approach consists of something like:
“Unless you accept that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living To most Jews who have not been exposed to the true Gospel,
“Jesus Christ” is the “false Gentile Additionally, the theological position of most Christian
denominations is that since “the Jews rejected their Messiah” (which has been
demonstrated above to be a false assumption to begin with), then The question that must be answered here is how
How can a Jew who deeply
loves the The form of “Christianity”
that most Gentile Christians offer to Jewish people is simply not at all
attractive to them, and the form of “Jesus” that most Gentile Christians
offer to Jewish people is simply not one that can possibly be the Jewish
Messiah. How can a Jewish Messiah do away with You asked me to recommend some literature. I strongly suggest that you get a copy of Take Hold: Embracing Our Divine Inheritance with Israel by Ariel and D'vorah Berkowitz. Though we don't currently offer it on our website, it is available from First Fruits of Zion for $17.97. Click on the title above and then search for item FFOZ03. The following books will also provide you with valuable insight: The Messianic Jewish Manifesto by David Stern provides a challenge to both Jews who honor Yeshua (Jesus) as Israel's Messiah and others involved with the Movement to catch the vision for its destiny, which is to heal the split between the Church and the Jewish people. Simultaneously 100% Messianic and 100% Jewish, we reject the "either-or" demanded by many Christians and Jews. Messianic Judaism is right, a radical solution, an idea whose time has come. A call to action for Messianic Jews and a source of information for others whether in favor, opposed, or just curious. Jesus the Jewish Theologian by Brad Young. Prophet, madman, Messiah—Jesus was all these things to the people around him. But most importantly, he was a Jew, just like them. Drawing insights and facts from first-century Jewish literature, archaeology, and tradition, Young shows you why understanding Jesus' Jewishness is crucial for interpreting the New Testament and for understanding the nature of our Christian faith. 320 pages, softcover from Hendrickson. Paul the Jewish Theologian by Brad Young reveals Rav Sha'ul of Tarsus [Paul the Apostle] as a man who, though rejected in the synagogue, never truly left Judaism. Young disagrees with long-held notions that Hellenism was the context which most influenced Sha'ul’s communication of the Gospel. Only in rightly aligning Sha'ul as rooted in his Jewishness and training as a Pharisee can he be correctly interpreted. Young asserts that Sha'ul’s view of the Torah was always positive, and separates Yeshua’s mission among the Jews from Sha'ul’s call to the Gentiles. I hope these comments help. Shalom b'Mashiach, Ari _______________ Note: The reason that I have placed the word “Christian” in quotes is to emphasize the point that not everybody or everything that is called “Christian” actually is. To many people throughout the world, any person who lives in one of the “Western World” countries and who cannot be clearly identified as Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or one of a few other religions, is by default considered “Christian.” Likewise, anybody who recognizes Christmas and Easter as holidays, even as secular holidays, is considered “Christian.” And particularly, anybody who is a member of any organized “church” or pseudo-Christian cult is considered “Christian,” regardless of whether or not they have been truly “born again.” The word “church” appears in quotes for the same reason. [RETURN]
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The second question is by far the easiest to answer, so I'll
tackle it first: Jews do not practice sacrifices because the Scriptures
require that sacrifices be offered only in the Temple in Jerusalem, which was
destroyed in the year 70 CE. According to Yeshua and the Prophets, the Temple
will be rebuilt and the sacrifices will be resumed shortly before Messiah's
return in glory. Until the Holy Mountain can be cleansed from the
“Abomination of Desolation” (The Dome of the Rock, the neighboring Al-Aqsa
mosque, and the 
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